Monday, November 05, 2018

If a member of your own party calls you a "racist pig", maybe you actually are a racist pig

During a discussion with host Chris Cuomo on Sunday, Republican political commentator Ana Navarro branded Trump “racist” in a debate with fellow commentator Steve Cortes, who supports the president.

Navarro served as a strategist for former Republican Governor Jeb Bush of Florida and the late Republican Senator John McCain but has said she will vote for a Democrat for the first time this year in her state of Florida's gubernatorial race. She said Democratic candidate Andrew Gillum ran a positive campaign compared with the GOP’s “campaign run on fear-mongering, division, hostility, gloom and doom.”

...

“Well, I think he’s racist. He called Mexicans criminals and rapists. He called El Salvador and Haiti shitholes. Sign me up in the category of the people who think he’s racist. He has said so many racist things,” Navarro said.

Cortes countered by saying: “You call him a racist when you don’t want to talk about policy.”

“He is a racist pig!” Navarro shouted before Cuomo brought the segment to a close.

(Emphasis added.)

The idea that Donald Trump isn't really a racist is about as tenable as the idea that the Civil War was not fought over slavery. It was. And he is.

Or you can vote for Democrats who might, maybe, start to steer us away from this dark place towards which we are currently barreling at full speed.

If you are an American voter, this is the choice you are faced with completely independent of any question of policy. It's a sad pass we have come to that after 242 years we still can't agree that a person ought not to be judged by the color of their skin. And yet, here we are.

Think about which side of that historical question you want to be on when you vote tomorrow.

2 comments:

Many of our activities involve inquiry, that is, the pursuit of truth. Science, philosophy, history, criminal investigations, journalism, and even ordinary conversation about everyday matters all, at least paradigmatically, aim at discovering and sharing truths. Among our methods for inquiry, the most widespread is arguably that of acquiring information from the testimony of other people. This practice of gathering information from others depends for its success, at least in part, on their sharing our concern for the pursuit of truth. We rely on others to make contributions that further the project of inquiry.

However, people do not always share this concern. We sometimes have goals other than the truth in conversation. We deceive each other, we mislead, we ignore evidence, we misrepresent.

Your post, in particular, shows an indifference towards truth. Your pretentious partisan screed misrepresents the Republican platform, the beliefs of President Trump, and the President's plans for the future. You put on the pretension the Republic itself is in danger and only by following your directions can it be saved. This is not simply carelessness or inattention to detail, it is an indifference to truth or falsity. You pay no attention to the truth at all.

My post says nothing about the Republican platform. It says that a prominent Republican called the President a racist pig on the record, and suggested that this might be because the president is in fact a racist pig. It also said that the Republican party has not mounted any effective opposition to the president, and so if you want some Congressional oversight of the executive branch, per the Constitution, you need to vote for Democrats. It also said that Republicans have suppressed minority voters through voter purges and gerrymandering, and if you want that to stop you need to vote for Democrats.

All of that is true.

> We deceive each other, we mislead, we ignore evidence, we misrepresent.

If by "we" you mean you and your fellow Republicans, then yes, that's the one thing you got right.